FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional ink jet print head 101. The print head 101 includes an ink reservoir (not shown) which provides ink to a plurality of nozzles 107 arranged in a plurality of rows on fluid-ejecting chips 110. In order to print an image with the print head 101, electrical signals are transmitted to the print head 101 that selectively provide electrical current to particular nozzles 107 causing such nozzles to heat up and eject ink at appropriate points in time to create an image on a substrate. Such electrical signals are provided to the nozzles 107 from a driving circuit (not shown) to contacts 195 located on a printed-circuit (“PC”) board 151. The contacts 195 are conductively connected to contacts 190 located on a single-layer-flex circuit 150. The contacts 190 are, in turn, conductively connected to contacts 180 (shown in FIG. 2) located on the single-layer-flex circuit 150 underneath a protective barrier 105. The contacts 180 underneath barrier 105 are disposed adjacent to the fluid-ejecting chips 110 located in a window 152 in the single-layer-flex circuit 150. The contacts 180 are conductively connected to contacts 120 (shown in FIG. 2), which are located on the respective fluid-ejecting chips 110 under the protective barrier 105. The connections between the contacts 180 and the contacts 120 typically occur by the formation of wire bonds (shown in FIG. 2) between such contacts 180, 120. The contacts 120 are conductively connected to the nozzles 107 on the corresponding fluid-ejecting chips 110, thereby allowing the electrical signals to be provided to the nozzles 107 from the driving circuit (not shown).
FIG. 2 illustrates a close-up view of the contacts 180 and the contacts 120, which are concealed in FIG. 1 by the protective barrier 105. For purposes of illustration, however, the protective barrier 105 is absent from FIG. 2. In the conventional print head 101, the contacts 180 and the contacts 120 are respectively arranged in parallel lines such that each contact 180 corresponds to a contact 120 located on a fluid-ejecting chip 110. Each corresponding pair of contacts 180 and 120 are connected via a wire bond 30. (It should be noted that, although wire bonds exist between the contacts above and below the chip 110, they are left out of FIG. 2 for purposes of clarity.)
The conventional print heads use a one-to-one, parallel, relationship between contacts 180 and contacts 120 in order to minimize the length of the wire bonds 30. Because the wire bonds 30 are fragile, they are frequently the source of failure. Accordingly, it is beneficial to keep the length of the wire bonds 30 as short as possible.
However, such a one-to-one relationship between contacts 180 and contacts 120 results in a large number of interconnections. Accordingly, returning to FIG. 1, the number of contacts 190 is large in order to properly route all of the signals that need to be provided to the contacts 180 and, consequently, to the contacts 120. Because the number of interconnections and the complexity of the wiring on the single-layer-flex circuit 150 contributes significantly to the cost of manufacturing the print head 101, it is desirable to simplify the interconnections between the contacts 190, 180, and 120.